Tamar Braxton, John Legend Debut High on Billboard 200 Chart

Tamar Braxton‘s album, Love and War landed high on the Billboard 200 chart, claiming the #2 spot and selling more than 144,000 copies in its first week in stores.

According to the publication, Braxton’s sophomore album also sits atop the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and the Top R&B Albums chart. The collection’s solid sales mark the largest sales week for a female R&B/hip-hop album since Alicia Keys‘ Girl on Fire, which opened with 159,000 copies sold last November.

Before the sales figures were even calculated, Tamar told ABC News Radio that just having the disc in stores was an accomplishment in itself. “It feels amazing. I feel so accomplished,” Tamar said last week. “Only because I set a goal and I wasn’t willing to stop until I got to this point, so I feel amazing.”

Elsewhere on the charts, John Legend‘s Love in the Future debuted at #4 on the Billboard 20, marking his sixth consecutive top 10 album. His disc managed to sell more than 68,000 copies, though that’s far below the first-week tally for his 2008 effort Evolver, which sold 133,000 copies in its debut week. However, the crooner recently explained to ABC News Radio why he’s never concerned about first-week sales.

“I want to sell a lot of records, but I’ve never been defined by my first week because I’ve never been a huge radio artist,” he says. “It usually takes a little longer for my albums to sell. But I feel like as long as we focus on quality and make something that’s great then the word of mouth will spread people will tell a friend, and like I said, the album won’t expire. They can still buy it three months from now, they can still buy it a year from now.”

He adds, “We try to make music that’s timeless, that isn’t just this flavor of the week, it’s something that we think will last and I really think we did that with this album.”

Jaheim‘s sixth studio effort, Appreciation Day, came in at #6 with 58,000 units moved. The figure reflects the lowest sales start of his career following 2010’s Another Round,” which debuted and peaked at #3 with 112,000 copies sold.